Video: On the line in Iraq

CAMP KALSU, Iraq — It's not just a soldier who goes to war for the first time — it's an experience for the soldier's entire family. NBC's Mike Taibbi has been following the stories of several soldiers as they trained and then headed to Iraq to put everything on the line as part of the continuing troop increase. In this segment, Mike takes a look at how a rookie and his family are handling their first weeks apart.

For 19-year-old Private Josh James, it was all new. The flight from Kuwait to Iraq, the first morning wakeup in huge Camp Kalsu south of Baghdad — and psyching himself past his last vestige of nervousness for the moment when he would leave the base for the first time — going "outside the wire," as they put it — a soldier at war.